


Sucks to be...

by Whaler



Series: Sucks to be [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Stopped Apocalypse, Working things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-11-13 09:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18029318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whaler/pseuds/Whaler
Summary: After stopping the apocalypse and being able to touch Ben Klaus leaves again without anyone noticing just like before.Maybe the answers aren’t in a shack in the woods but he might as well starts there.





	1. 1

Once Klaus Hargreeves bought a house.

Not recently though, it happened six, seven, eight years ago? Quit a time. It definitely happened before Ben showed up four, five, six years ago. Time was a cunt, always has been.

In these days he was mostly broke, the little money he earned one way or another was spent on drugs, alcohol or food depending on whether he was sober enough to care about hunger. He considered it a new age diet or a self-made self-regulated human experiment about how much a “special” Umbrella kid could endure before it starves depending on the mood. The latter almost sounded like a papa Hargreeves experiment. But of course Regi wouldn't want to kill them. He wouldn't necessary help them to stay alive, but wouldn't want to kill them.

He sighted, wiped his eyes, the tears dissolved his eyeliner and it stung. Fuck his life, fuck his... He clutched the wheel with two hands while fat raindrops thudded and raced on the windshield. The rain got harder. Some generic pop was playing on the radio. The wiper moved with a harsh, rubber-ish sound. The last headlights turned toward other roads. The world was plain, gray and empty around. He looked into the rear-view mirror. There was a wet rabbit out there in the field.

The world consisted of slow paced, broken mosaics and he was too sick and too sober.

There were ghosts on the road of course. Where weren’t they? Everywhere. _Everywhere._ Roadkill mostly: half headed, broken, open. Kids too. He should've driven through them and never did.

_Ben, what’s after death?_

_I don't know. Never been at the other side._

_Pff. You’re like a Rembrandt for a blind man._ That was sophisticated from him, once he had been sophisticated.

The ghosts looked at him, the van behind him honked as he trampled the break as one appeared right before him and drove through them as it bypassed. The ghosts approached him. He drove. Once he stopped and cried crouched down behind the tire. His siblings would've called it attention seeking, he didn't call it anything, they were not wrong.

It wasn't even his car, but this time at least he had left a note in the garage. If anyone would ever miss it. It was a mess. As luck would have it Klaus happened to be a mess too. Match made in heaven. Though he had been too high to drive since ages. He wouldn't've care just for himself but was almost manically afraid he would kill someone. His dad called him weak, Ben called him sensible - the same Ben who ripped people apart at age seven, the same Ben who died before he could've find out how to help him. The kids they had been...

But now he was driving and as it's been said before, once he bought a house. The money for it happened to be stolen from the cupboard when he run away for the first time precisely the second he turned eighteen. It hadn't been a lot of money, just enough, the house cost almost nothing which had something to do with being less of a house and more of an old, putrid shithole in the middle of the woods in the land called Two Miles Further from Mary's Butthole. A nice place, still better than under a bridge and way better than Hotel Hargreeves. He'd bought it in the heat of the moment after his first wake in an ambulance facing a defibrillator. So far out nobody would hear the screams or the shots and he could decay in peace... The possibility was calming and frightening at the same. He thought about it often, but never got going. Couldn’t do that to Ben. It was stupid. _But couldn’t do that to Ben._

  


* * *

 

 

The house has been every bit of the rundown worthless shack he's expected it to be down to the last rusty nail. It had the color of the pine needles covering the ground thickly, there was moss growing on the walls and on the bent roof. A pile of chopped, rotting wood leaned against the wall conquered by mushrooms. The ground felt soft under his feet due to the needles, the pines towered above him gray and brown, menacing in the fall, only straight trunks wherever he could see, like many many old pencils. The air felt heavy with wood, rot, resin and wetness. A woodpecker hammered a tree somewhere near like the ratatata of a machine gun and for a split second he froze between tossing himself to the ground and already expecting the bullets to his chest. He laughed short and bitter.

“Fuck my life, would you...”

Since Vietnam he has been feeling old. Not old like Five, but old nevertheless. He assumed it was the war's doing, it was being there for almost a year, it was the killing and loss and... And coming back alone to that room without notice, carry on without anyone missing him. And now he felt old, alone, painfully sober, like there were insects under his skin crawling and running around. He saw faces among the trees, he did that sometimes: saw faces where none were, not even ghosts. They moved in the shadows, on the glass, in a cup of water, crawled from under his bed. He closed his eyes and saw faces.

_What are you afraid of? The darkness?_

Regi laughed at him, Ben held him, he thought himself weak, harboring some inherent failing in his genes, his soul, his body. He was afraid of ghost and even more he was afraid of death.

_Sorry I can’t sleep without it. Breath without it. Live with it._ The pills almost embraced as soft as Ben did _._ The kids they had been...

He always thought the darkness was different for everyone: for him it was sneaking in his steps inescapable, for Ben it lurked inside and the others had been lucky not to know it. He never asked for seeing the dead. He never asked for being traumatized for a lifetime. Neither did Ben. Life was more of a shithole than his house could ever be.

_I tried to draw a line and I’ve failed over and over. It’s a spiral. I’m dizzy._

Before he ventured further inside, he turned, opened the hood grabbed the first wires and tubes he saw, yanked them out and tossed them far into the thicket. That's for that. Sanity was overrated anyway.

Then he threw up.

  


* * *

 

 

Back then when they were younger he had been the first to leave - apart from Ben of course, but dying young just didn't count. He was the first to leave now again – apart from Ben and this time he didn't know what to make of him not appearing again. He stood at the middle of that one single room of the house with the table, the disgusting bed and single stove. It was dark inside. _There was dark inside._ And spiders. Probably other animals from the smell.

Once he almost tattooed ‘Don’t open dead inside’ onto his chest but it would’ve been to edgy even for an edgelord. And he had been so high.

He craved to feel numb again and he couldn't - had made sure of that. If he ever made a bad decision...

“Ben?” he called out, waited but got no answer. The woodpecker pecked the wood, termites feasted in the wall. He tossed his bag to the ground, sat down to a chair angry, disappointed, hiding his face into his hand. Edgelord. Always has been. The darkest goths had nothing compared to him.

“You dead sonofabitch…” he laughed again bitterly, leaned back. There was some old gadgets around the house, real old, real dirty. The shit his brother had seen beside him… That shit that has been his life, was his life, will be his life. Some inherent failure, because he was afraid of death. Maybe afraid of life.

The worst of the first wave of withdrawal had passed a day before, but he wasn’t out of the water: the insects under his skin, the mess inside his head that _aching._ The worst kind of hunger. The worst kind of itching _inside_ his bones. Inside his head. _Junkie._ But he wasn’t a junkie just an addict. He had learned biology at uni briefly. This has nothing to do with addiction, he just liked to remember. Psychology too, he gave it up at psychology. It almost seemed like there was a time he tried to understand what was happening to him. And to Ben. He always thought about Ben too.

His dead brother had begged him not to come, begged him to tell the others where he was going, what he was fighting against. He hadn’t. And won’t. He lived without them this far and will live without them this for. As much as he loved them fuck them all. And fuck Ben, fuck that he watched it all along and saw it, fuck that he could never send him away, fuck that he reminded him of...

_Just go away, Ben! Go away! Go to heaven or toward the light or reincarnate or some other bullshit, just let me be the fuck alone!_

He would have been dead if not for his brother. Killed in an orgy not even knowing what’s happening to his body. He did die many times actually. And Ben saw it and Ben wouldn’t talk to him for days after. Hours. He tried to draw lines and those lines would be drawn ever lower.

He stood. It rained outside, the dropps thumped on the car, on the trees, the moss on the roof protected the house. There was a man wandering around among the pine trees half of his face was eaten from his skull.

_They can do nothing. They can do nothing._ He watched the man, fingers white on the windowsill.

Ben had kissed him. Yeah, that probably actually happened. After he slapped the pill out of him - literally. The punch, the surprise and the next thing he knew were Ben’s lips on his, Ben’s breath on his skin, his hand on his back, the solid body against him. That kiss. So fast and so heavy.

Then just like to annoy him, that end of the world bullshit happened, which was averted by not being complete dickheads to Vanya, Diego punching out Luther landed the message. Who would’ve thought it will not being the assholes that saves the world? It was some otherworldly miracle they could do it considering… well, considering who they were and how day behaved on a daily basis.

Life returned back to normal and he left. After arguing with Ben. After not being able to touch him again. _After not being fucking able to touch him again._ For fuck’s sake. _For fuck’s sake._

The half faced man was wandering outside and he considered that as good time as any.

  


* * *

 

 

The rain hit hard on his skin, borderland painful and cold like it was ice itself, like a wet, cold, frozen blanket all over him. Wet and goosebumped. It felt so good. All the pain, all the pleasure showed him he was still present. This two could break through the numbness of the pills, but he loved pain more, it felt so much more familiar. More deserving. And more welcomed.

He approached the wandering man carefully, drenched to the bones in seconds. The ghost saw him, talked to him in some foreign language that he couldn’t understand, but the man was pointing toward the depths of the forest. Half of his head was missing the flesh, cranium cracked open like a nut, features frozen to the last expression: to that fear, pain and desperation. Horrific. And he suffered greatly, saw it in his eyes, but was calm, calmer than the others coming for him, trying to touch and scream and hate and claw.

The dead were loud and crazy, but Ben was calm. He wasn’t patient, not really, but has always been calm.

The man motioned toward him then to the forest, got moving then stopped, looked back, moved again. He followed. Toward the darkness, in the cold and rain. He had nothing else to do. Sanity has always been overrated.

“Klaus” a gentle but anxious voice called out to him. He turned and Ben was standing there the rain and pine needles falling right through him. “What are you doing?”

He just motioned toward the direction he was heading.“Befriending the locals?”

“That’s knew.” Ben made a face. “Your lips are purple.”

“New place, knew me?” He touched his own lips, like if he could feel it’s color. Stupid shit, his brain on autopilot, through the skin did felt cold, freezing even, but it felt so good, he could feel his skin emitting the heat till nothing would be left. The air full with oxygen and decay. He never has been a nature type of kid.

Their eyes met for a long moment, got lost in those deep eyes, clear, handsome face, felt his own goofy smile.

“What are you thinking about?”

“That the only reason I hadn't shot me in the head is that I would've turned out like them. They all look the way they died, only you look pretty. Couldn't tell you were dead if I hadn't, you know… seen it.” He shivered, Ben came closer, but no matter how close he seemed to be he couldn’t have been further. “Tell me something though: had you done that to yourself?”

Ben froze. “You never asked this before.”

“Yeah, guess it wouldn’t’ve changed anything anyway.”

“And now?”

He shrugged or rather shivered again. “Humor me!”

“Would’ve never done that to you.”

That hit him hard. With the withdrawal and itches and insects under the skin, the apocalypse, his dad, his siblings, the war, Dave, the army. And this. And Ben. That he couldn’t touch again. It was so much he just sat down into the mud and pine needles in the rain that got harder so that it _buzzed._ It thundered.

_I wish I could tell you the same. I wish you left a long time ago or would’ve never came at all._

Ben was watching him standing just above him. “Get up!”

“Naw.” he snickered. “It feels good.”

“Please.”

It reminded him of waterboarding, of that whole two days in the motel. It hurt and he was so afraid. _So afraid._ But it felt so good because it wasn’t _that_ fear. It popped him a boner.

Some inherent failure in who he was.

Ben made it worse. He was the only one who could make things better and worse in the same time.

“You will get sick, die from a cold.”

“You can’t die from a cold.”

“There is a first in everything.”

“Aw, but I can’t be the first, silly, I’m Number Four.” he grinned playing with the pine needles. Those numbers were weird shit, made him think about Luther, Allison and Diego as older sibling though they were the same age. And Vanya would’ve been everyone’s little sister, if they would’ve had the capacity to care.

“You should call someone: Diego, Allison, your dealer, I don’t care, just call someone!” Ben nagged him again. “You know I want you sober, but this is no game, Klaus. You need help, real help. I don’t want to watch this.”

“You don’t have to, dear brother. Never had to.” he closed his eyes. It was so cold, the ghost of the stranger was talking again. “I really thought you won’t come this time.”

When he looked up Ben looked sad. He rarely looked anything but stoic. “Because of the fight?”

He shrugged.

“Never gonna happen.” the ghost crouched down to him. “You’re a dumbass, Klaus. We've always been together.”

They had been. So close, so warm. The only ever good thing Reginald had ever done is not separating the two of them. They had the same room, often the same bed. Both were dysfunctional on their own, unmanageable, but Ben calmed him in the dark lying so close and warm and present, and he held Ben when he was drenched in blood, shattered to the core. He tore people apart at age nine.

_I am a monster. I am a monster._

He held him so close, so tight, palm on Ben’s chest loving, trusting, in the same bed, petting his head, kissing his cheek. _It’s not your fault, none of it. I’ve got you._ They were killing his brother day by day.

“You hit dad for me once.” Ben smiled nostalgic.

_Let go of him! Let go! You don’t bring him anywhere!_ His dad was afraid of Vanya, but was never afraid of Ben. He has been too nice, too quiet, too gentle. _Ben, you’re such a sweetheart_.

“Yeah.” he snickered. He would’ve killed the man if he knew it would help.

Ben has been everything for him. Then Ben died.

“You know… when I saw dad again -” he touched his forehead with a fingertip then motioned a ‘boo I was out of my mind’. He was shaking in the cold. “he told me he prepared us for the apocalypse... and for a second I thought: oh it’s the greatest thing ever because then he at least had a damn purpose. What he did to us. This.” he motioned vaguely to themselves. “He has been a mysterious old jerk enough to know about it, or eat someone’s soul, who knows. I don’t and I don’t care. But you see, if he would’ve known anything, he wouldn’t’ve been such an asshole at least to Vanya. Or would’ve killed her. You know, what dads do to their teenage daughters.”

“You think he lied?”

“I think he was crazy. Megalomaniac. He thought he could pull a Nick Fury. You won’t get to be a Nick Fury with a name like Reginald.”

“More like a Charles Xavier.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s what we would needed, him reading mind too. Or guess what, I hope he could cause then he knew how much we hated him.”

“You miss him though.”

“I miss any sane adult in our vicinity from back then.” He smiled bitter, crazy, his head hurt, the nausea got stronger with the itching. _Just one more. Just one more to feel good before coming down. One more._ Except there was no coming down. Drugs worked a bit like tonic, the aftertaste was so awful it was easier just drink another. Not seeing the dead and sleeping calmly were more addictive than any drug could be though.

“I smoked extra to make sure not to see him again.”

When Ben appeared in his mid twenties he's been already and addict more or less living on the streets.

Ben crouched before him, his eyes so deep storming with powerlessness, impatience and the anger of not being there. He hadn’t been like this before, that touch changed everything.

_I’m trying. I’m trying. I don't know how I could try harder._

_You were the greatest disappointment, never even got close to your full potential._

He broke after Ben’s death. He got lost after his brother died. Forgotten. He was every bit of a weird shit and he got forgotten. Ben looked at him as he was something precious. _My brother fucking up his life I was robbed from._

“Go in, Klaus, please!” It was almost begging. He shook his head.

_I would change place with you._

_You would want to be the tentacle monster and I should see the dead?_

_Would for you. For you not to be. And nobody should see the dead._

Ben tried to touch him again and his hand went right through his knee. Klaus whined deep, guttural in desperation, tried to touch too from deep inside, with everything. They had played that child's game at the house for hours, concentrated so hard. They wanted it so badly, more than curiosity. Fuck Curiosity. Now it wasn’t working again, his hand went right through Ben’s again and again. _Why? Why?_ He tried, he wanted, he was sober, so painfully sober, sharp like he could cut himself with it, aching all over, and cold and nauseous with the beginning of a migraine. He craved from so deep inside he would just walk three days back to town to get his pills, but he didn’t. He made sure. He’ll sooner nail himself to the table if he must.

Ben gave up first. Klaus cried again silently. It was the powerlessness, the disappointment. And of course it was the sorrow. It always had been the sorrow.

“Please call someone!” Ben tried to reason again. “You haven't brought anything. Or just go in at least, please.”

He looked Ben in the eye. Those eyes told him Ben kissed him the first thing he had the chance and let him heard him inside this time.

  


* * *

 

 

The nightmares woke him just like every damn time he approached sober. The older he got the more material they gained: like Vietnam or living on the streets. If he wouldn’t act cheerful and clumsy he would be screaming. He shook, wiped his eyes. Like he hadn’t slept at all, felt anxious and heavy. It was the nightmares and the withdrawal. Five days straight, nearly a hundred and twenty hours.

“You have a fever.” Ben told him. He was sitting near the window tense and angry.

“Or the fever has me.” he pointed out collapsing back to the sleeping bag groaning. It smelled. Maybe he smelled. He had the faint memory of throwing up.

“Cut the bullshit, would you?”

“Okay then, doctor Casper, what's the plan?”

The bed stinked too and itched, he was naked in the bag. The clothes got wet in the rain and he didn’t had the patience or the coordination to change. He was happy he had the state of mind to make the fire.

“You still have sixty percent on the phone and you got signal. Call Diego!”

“Naw.”

“Call Allison!”

“Double naw.”

“Go home, then!”

“Car’s wires missing.”

“I’ll help look for them.”

“Dunno how to fix a car.”

Ben looked at him bewildered, angry and afraid. Ben was afraid. Fucking ghosts were afraid of nothing.

“You don’t have enough food here, no medicine, not even a real blanket, what about water? You want me to see you die so much?”

He buried his face into the bag. It would have been so much easier just die - if he knew he wouldn’t be stuck here as ghost for eternity - if Ben wouldn’t have come back. He could’ve been with Ben and Dave except both have passed to the other side and he knew he wouldn’t. He knew it like he knew he dead and he gave up to figure that shit out a long time ago too. Still the thought hurt his soul like the withdrawal his pained bones and the fever his muscles. Back then a breathing, young Ben would’ve lie beside him warm, soft and comforting. Dave would’ve cheered him up with kisses. Ben would’ve spun some stories to distract him holding onto him just as much as Klaus was.

Ben had been so much and Ben died. Dave died too. But _I came back, Klaus, because I wanted to._

“You ever thought about how sooner we would’ve found this out if I’m just cleaner?”

Ben looked sad again. “It’s not worth asking the what if-s.”

“Still.” he stood, folded the sleeping back around himself went to the window barefoot. He was cold, now on two feet felt the fever too. The storm hadn’t passed, but the time did and the woods around him darkened. The half faced ghost hadn’t came closer but was staring at him. In that moment it hit him how alone he really was in the middle of the woods. No road, no civilization, no phone in a few hours, no car, no others. Only the dead, like in the crypt. He was as alone as he usually felt.

“I feel like a ghost sometimes.” he looked back at Ben. “No matter how much noise or mess I make, everyone looks right through me. Like I’m not there, like they forget me the moment they look elsewhere. After you were gone and I just... like I got lost or got mute and invisible. Like they forgot me, I just ceased to be. You were the only one.”

Telling a ghost what it felt like. Real clever. Real considerate. _I don’t want you here but I’ m so afraid to be alone._ Ben hadn't been there till the mid twenties, he wouldn't know. And still he would know the most. He almost expected his brother to be angry, but Ben wasn't.

“They can at least touch you.”

“Yeah, they can.”

And how good it was craving the drugs and hating them, loathing the touches but needing them, being disgusted during and after. Being disgusted of himself, of the insects under his skin, of that inherent fault, of the fears, the poison. The thing he did for just one touch...

_The things he would do for one touch._

He reached For Ben’s hand. “Let me try again…”


	2. Chapter 2

Klaus Hargreeves was moderately sure he wasn’t lying in a tent in a Vietnamese jungle. But he was lying _somewhere_ in the dark and the world moved with him like an unhinged carousel. Even that stinky mattress swirled and he smelled things, felt things, touched things that had no business being there. In Vietnam. He wasn’t in Vietnam. Probably. He willed his mind to sleep and ended up in a disagreement with his body. Especially with his stomach.

_Are you sick, darling? Should I call the nurse? Or should I be your nurse?_

Dave. That smirk. That blood. Those cries.

The eyes got slammed opened, breathing shallow, pupils painfully wide in the utter darkness, head heavy like it was pinned to the bed, the shadow of nausea playing hide and seek and his heart hammered, the panic crept up on his back with long, cold fingers. And claws. Count to ten, breath, let it happen - he knew the drill, been there done that way too many times. _Count to ten, breath, let it happen, let it pass._

_But you don’t have to do this alone anymore, sweetheart, come here, lie with me!_

Dave. That laugh, those shots. Nerves were breaking loose, breathing got hard, fingers grabbed the bag, but he couldn’t lose it now. Not now, not there. _When the panic hits, look for safe things, stable things!_ Stable. He couldn’t find a damn stable thing when he was sane. _Talk, just talk, hear a voice before the ghost arrive._ He whined. There was too much blackness, too much noise. _Klaus, love, darling, it will be alright._ No. _Get your shit together!_ What a life it was to be able to choose from dead lovers.

“Klaus?” He made a small sound, a cry for help. “Shh, I’m here, I’m here, I’ve got you, listen to my voice!”

There were stones in his mouth, concrete in his throat: impossible to talk, hard to stay sane in the darkness and trembling cold with nausea and a head heavy like it was filled with water. He needed minutes, breaths and more minutes, Ben’s whispering till nothing was left just the darkness, the cold and the burning of his skin. A storm fought the woods outside. The much wrong in his head.

“It’s night, right?” he managed cheeks hard against the mattress, fingers white around the bag.

“Three a.m. Your fever is high again.”

“I'll make sure it goes to detox.” He _heard_ the eye roll and smiled into the sleeping bag. The grab eased somewhat, breathing too, he closed his eyes hard, swallowed a whine. Another sleepless night, the wrecked he felt, the tired and weak he was. Something x days, something hundred and x hours. Sleep was a sensible little bitch without the pills.

And it hadn’t been even the first panic attack.

He sat up, groaned, leaned against the wet wall in the drenched sleeping bag, pushed his head against the cold, weigh wood. Or was it his head? Heavy, mushy, skin burning, trembling even cocooned in the sleeping bag. Withdrawal, fever, memories, the second round _,_ two to zero this far. Winning this far, what a win though! He wasn’t sure the insects were in the bag or under his skin.

Lightning split the sky, brightened the room, the thunder made the woods crawl into a ball. He always had a thing for storms, the sun was disgusting.

“Lie back, you need rest!”

“Yes, daddy...” he mocked. It was dark and loud in the room. The storm. But lately it got loud everywhere where Ben and him were left alone together. _It howled._ The tension probably. “I hope you don’t have this kink. I don’t. I have many, but I don’t have this. Would call anyone master, but I don’t do daddy.”

Not even with Dave, that worked without ropes, pain and name calling – a first in its own way. The memories got swallowed before they could kick him cold again.

“I don’t have kinks.”

“Course…” he grinned eyes closed, pushing his head hard against the wall. “And played the peeping Tom watching your brother for how many years?”

“I wasn’t watching!” Ben protested indignantly. “I was helping, trying to get you out of danger.”

“That too.” he opened his eyes, though it helped nothing, the room was just as dark as the inner of his eyelids. “You did that too a lot.”

 _Get up, you hear me, get up, asshole, these are bad people, bad people, you need to get away!_ Their eyes met with Ben sitting at the table, watching him with those dark eyes on that clean face. He was the only thing he could see in the brighless night, like a beacon, burning like he glowed. Didn't, of course, but he could might as well. Ghosts weren’t part of the world so the world had nothing on them. _Is it true, though, Ben? Is it true? Is this a dream for you?_ A dream come true and ain’t that the bullshit?

Klaus never told him he imagined Ben in the place of the first guy he had sex with. He never told him that it felt so wrong, sick and cruel he cried in a shower for hours after trying just to wash away the dread and the feeling. Like he never told him he sought out the brutes, the sickest minded crazy and the weirdest, most painful, cruel shit just to know that it’s a way Ben wouldn’t do it. To know that that fantasy, that man, that feeling won’t be fouled ever again.

He didn’t told him how much sick, weird thoughts can fit just one man’s head.

“M cold…” But his skin burned, his eyes and lips were on fire.

“I know. Can’t help it, I wish I could.”

 _You shouldn’t want this_ and _don't we all?_ A constant argument and a d _éjà vu._ So many times he had been lying in some awful hole, on the streets in vomit and piss and grime and beaten and high, Ben standing over him. Watching. Always watching. Unable to do anything else. Sometimes he left if it had been too much, if he couldn’t take it anymore, back to whatever was left for them in the afterlife. Klaus imagined him angry but Ben mostly cried.

_You can’t order me what I should want._

He fought his way out of the sleeping bag, down from the bed. The cold air felt nice against his naked skin but he trembled, staggered, weak on his feet, hungry and thirsty and _hurt_. Ben appeared beside him, his arms moving like he wanted to catch him, a move he hadn’t done for years but since the kiss he was doing it again, _everything fucking changed,_ although his fingers halted inches from Klaus’ skin.

“What are you doin?”

“Can’t take this darkness, Ben. Can’t take this darkness.” A lightning covered the room in brightness again before a thunder banged just above them. He flinched, head hurt, the rain got harder. Violent. There were no faces in the corners, nothing creeping toward him from under the bed no matter what he saw from the corner of his eyes.

Ben took a step back, told him where to look for the wood, for the match, for the fireplace, repeating again and again there was nothing else in the room. He lighted the fire, squinted in the brightness, watched the weak, orange flames as they conquered the logs, licked them, ate them. _So cold everywhere._ Reached toward the flickers squatted down in front to warm his hands but lost his balance and fell back to the ass.

He chuckled. “Gods, I’m out of.”

“I wouldn’t sit on this floor naked.” Ben told from behind him, but he just grinned.

“I’m seconds away from don’t giving a fuck and just lying down here and now.”

“Please don’t though.”

He just chuckled again that turned almost into tears. He was so fucking out of it, fed up and hollow the same time. _It’s not the way you fight a war, lad, take that weapon, aim, shoot between the eyes._ Once their camp was burned down. They got attacked during storms. He walked among corpses, turned out to be a good shot, made themselves live another day, another night at the light of a different fire.

Ben was watching him from behind. “You were shot?”

He looked for the wound on his left side, it healed a long time ago, but the scar was a gift for a lifetime. “Life of a rookie. I was...”

 _We’re getting him outta here! One, two…_ He got a medal for it, then had left one friend to die. The most important one. No matter how many he shot or how many he covered, saved maybe there was only the dead to count till they lost it around way too much. _It’s alright, love, we’re going home._

 _Did you, Dave? Did you get home?_ That chest looked something awful. The wrong man died. Twice now. He touched the scar on his side.

“I was useful till I wasn't.”

The room was now filled with warm light, heating up his chest and front, leaving his back to the cold and darkness, but his head felt heavier than ever, the limbs boneless, the world spun and he fell over to the side just to keep up with it. The floor was cold, wet…

“Klaus!”

...stank like déjá vu.

“I’ve had worse.”

“It's not a contest! You shouldn't just-- !”

“But I can’t get up, Ben.” he smiled resigned. The memories were heavier than any fever. “Not this time.”

That silenced his brother and he watched the flames; cold, naked, arm stretched toward the fire only that hand really warm. Then Ben moved, sat beside him, to his head, with only his legs in Klaus' field of view. Those long, beautiful legs… _Ain’t you a fan?_ He had been standing in the shower when Ben appeared some x years ago. _Holy shit, man! Holy shit!_ Fell so hard had almost broken his elbow, but Ben just turned up from nowhere, after so many years, after so many _things._ His favorite “brother”, his first love… felt so much more than love.

 _This is not family, this is an orphanage. Two orphans finding each other in a shithole is a love story and we should’ve felt bad about our last names?_ He gave exactly zero fucks about their names, would’ve changed it anyway after Regi’s death. To Mr Klaus AnythingButNotHargreeves. Zero fucks. Zero. But they couldn’t ignore death. Nobody could ignore death. Diego thought him lucky because he could see who he’s lost, but Diego was fucking _batshit_.

When Ben returned he didn’t know Klaus to be an addict, a wreck of a human, didn’t know what he did to his body. He expected the same man who held him in his death and oh boy he had been in for a shitton of surprises.

“Talk about awkward meetings.”

“Hm?”

“Ours. The first. The first _after_.”

Ben leaned forward so now he could see his arms too from the ground, elbows on the knees, hand hanging loose toward the ground. Those elegant, flawless fingers.

“You hadn’t known what to say.” There was a smile in Ben’s voice.

“Yeah.” He hadn’t, just sat there in the shower gaping up like a fish. Almost terrified, quite sure he smoked too much funny. _I’ve missed you._ \- That’s what Ben said.

Klaus’ always been the talking one, who needed everything out loud. Ben cuddled: hugged him from behind when sad, held his hands all day after a mission, snuggled close to Klaus at night. Now it was hell, just plain hell being so close and so far. The things his brother had to see beside him…

“I’m sorry for what I did to you…”

“You did nothing.”

“For that too then.”

Ben’s fingers moved like he wanted to touch, but they didn’t. The flames danced, the rain beat down hard on the forest. It got warmer, but the fever made it feel even colder, the floor hurt under him, limbs felt numb.

“I’ve never blamed you, you know that right?” Ben said. “I wasn’t angry at you, I was angry at them for leaving you alone.”

Alone alright. When he screamed all day to make them hear him they closed the door, when he did stupid shit their mother packed everything up again with a smile and without acknowledgment, when he spoke about anything and everything to not hear the silence they walked on, when he tried to explain they never understood.

“If anybody knows what you went through, what that darkness is like, what living with powers you don’t want is like... You kept me together when I was young and I tired to do the same when we got older, but then you had to…”

“Bury you.”

“Bury me.” Ben swallowed. They hardly talked about this.

The funeral had been on a bright, sunny day, short, simple, impersonal. Regi scolded him for crying, told him he knew about them, the others payed oblivious not standing up for him, only Vanya, but she hadn’t had vote in the house neither. And Ben hadn’t even got a painting, just a statue out there in the garden. This he never forgave their father, that he didn’t miss Ben as he missed Five. Ben knew that darkness from the inside, Klaus from the outside and that knowledge and understanding made them strong. After Ben’s death he just didn’t know anything anymore.

“But you still blame me. I hadn’t been stronger. Couldn’t hold out long enough. Hadn’t changed on a flick, hadn’t listened.”

“Klaus…”

“It’s fine, I blame me too.” _It didn’t worth asking the what if-s._ And still.

Ben moved again like he wanted to touch, his muscles tense, angry and hurt and desperate, but the hand stilled again before it could reach him just above his head.

“You know it won’t work too, hm?” The headache got heavier, the rain tantalizing. “That’s why. I can be less an addict, but not more sober, Ben. Maybe less sick, but I don’t think… I’m not sure it’s sobriety.”

He reached up, concentrated, tried to lay his hand on Ben’s leg over his head: feel the clothes, feel the skin, feel anything solid, saw Ben’s leg tremble, heard the hard breath, the crave, the anticipation, but his hand went right through and all he could feel was air. _All he could feel was fucking air._

Both were watching Klaus’ hand lying on the floor buried in Ben’s form.

“I didn’t kiss you, because you were near.” Ben said silently. He looked up at him turning to his back.

“Figured that much.”

Ben smiled weakly. “Yes, I’m--” Klaus reached up toward his cheeks, run his fingers where Ben would be, on the skin, in the hair. Ben held his wrist like he could hold it, kissed his fingers like he could kiss it, and he looked down at him like wanted, like he craved, like it hurt. And it hurt alright. And there was want alright. Ben hadn’t looked at him like that for… for. Just hadn’t. What had been there to hope? What was there to hope now? A single punch. A single kiss. A single crack on the ice and if it won’t work… Desperation. What he felt was akin to desperation.

 _How long can you hurt someone you loved?_ And _can you really love a ghost?_

“If it won’t work… If it won’t work I want you to go back to the light.”

  


* * *

  


The next time he opened his eyes the room was brighter, the fire out again but the windows were gray in the daybreak, the world colorless, silent, the storm had passed and he felt placid. Tired like he'd run all night, but calm, the burning of the fever had passed for now though every single bone and muscle hurt in his body. Sleeping on the floor felt like a hard beating.

Usually when he woke like this he had been used long and careless by one to many. Memories ghosted around him about cellars and dungeons, toys, whips and painful looking way too big things. He managed to avoid the heavier kind of drugs because they caused visions even more jarring than reality, but sex and alcohol were just as bad substitutes. If Ben wanted him, wanted to fuck him after everything he had seen, after everything he knows to had been _on_ and _inside_ his body he was more sick and disgusting than Klaus could ever be.

_Where are those lines you'd drawn again?_

Even he didn't wanted to fuck himself sometimes and carefully never asked Ben about it. Back then they had been too young and too afraid to do more than think about it. That was for the better maybe, saved that innocence.

For minutes he just lied there in silence, fingers moving on the floor, like playing the piano he’d never played, listening to his own breathing. In and out. Water dipped. His limbs felt cold to the bone and numb. The madness was behind him, but the anxiousness it’s brought lingered. _In and out._ But that anxiousness chased him up, feet against the doty, old wooden floor, legs antsy, he groaned as his body protested. Unresponsive to the morning. Cause that's what he needed, the possibility to jerk off in a shack in the middle of nowhere to a dead lover. To a ghost. That was actually a line drawn. Right after his first time. There was a big difference between a memory and seeing them again as ghosts. Illusion being that difference. _A fucking illusion._

For minutes he just sat there in the gray room with the rising sun, alone, Ben away. Birds twitched outside and somewhere at the back of his mind he still wondered why he wasn't in a Vietnamese jungle with the others. A weak ago. He lived a different life just a week ago, the most violent turn of his life. Coming back, that is. That coming back. Life took a hard turn like hairpin and this was not the straight part of the ride.

The night on the other hand, that he remembered.

  


* * *

  


Not much later that day the door closed behind him with a small noise. The forest looked back at him just as deep, calm and infinite as a day before. Needles, moss, lichen, rocks. And a car. Of course. Still useless, will be useless in the foreseeable future and if he would've had the right state of mind he would’ve indeed stressed about how he will ever get out of there but he just didn't have it. So he just looked at the car, noted the dirt the storm left on it, noted the lack of way out then looked at something else.

 _In a hurry to where, anyway? Home? There? Back to the drugs and that life?_ The lack of any care wasn’t unusual, but it frightened him now after Vietnam. After he lived a life for almost a year where he actually wanted to get out of bed most mornings. He'd escaped to fucking war from this life.

A good view reached far ahead among the bare, pencil-like trunks, but farther the picture blurred into a brown-grey mass like it was a wall, the end of the world. An abyss. It was so different than any jungle. The morning breeze felt cool on his skin even in a jacket, the forest was filled with chirping, busy with squirrels and others: a fox run away with a rabbit in his mouth, and something fast made his way through under the leaves as it heard his footsteps. The ground was even mushier after the storm but the air was clearer than anything he’d ever breathed in before. Cold and crisp, like it washed him out, cleared his lungs, blood and head.

His mind needed a spring cleaning right about that fucking moment anyway.

He circled the old car, opened the trunk with a loud, metallic noise in the nature. It screamed intruder. The slowness of the world around him felt alien, like he was forgetting something and the craving for the pills raised its head from the depths of his mind. He pushed it back down. There was some food in the trunk, but Ben has been right, not too much, enough for some days for a single man; and single he was alright - after burying the two he loved. _How many can you bury before you lay down yourself?_

A slow clap, that’s what he needed. He couldn't get the drugs, meds or food if it was the last thing to keep himself alive. One day impulsiveness would kill him. He always thought it would be the drugs.

He took out a cereal bar, closed the trunk, sat on the front of the car to eat his breakfast while watching the crumbly house and the forest. The wooden walls looked almost black wet like this under the green moss, there were pine saplings growing on the roof, birds hunting in the eaves, some brave squirrels coming closer. They were none the wiser about Ben just appearing beside and only run away in panic when he spoke munching on the cereal.

“You think I should renovate?”

“Would you stay for that long?” Ben’s voice was laced with tension, his arms folded on his chest.

He arched a brow. “Who pissed in your soup?”

“I wonder.” His brother looked at him. “You sent me away, Klaus!”

“I didn't.”

“But you did. Go to the light if it doesn't works, rings a bell?”

It did. Of course it did, he expected the shoe to drop from the second the words left his mouth. Maybe Ben's thought him too sick to argue the night, but he hadn't said anything for hours. Ignored him for hours, like he hadn't heard him and he was so sick of that, sick of not being taken seriously. Not in this. Not when it was about this. Ben's lost the right to protest.

“Why, how long could you carry this on?” he snapped jumping down from the car to face him. “This!” he reached through Ben's chest to prove the point. “How long? Cause all the squirrels see now is me arguing with damn air!”

It hadn't been incidental that they'd never talked about what they've had between them. Never a word, never a mention before that one touch and that one kiss, never a reminder, because it just couldn't be done. Couldn't be _borne._ The way they lived, the way _things was,_ he couldn't face what it _had been._ They'd been kids, raised like brothers, not together, not old enough, not free enough, but neither of them had given a single fuck because it had been _real._ With Ben being a ghost it just couldn't be real again _._ Still it'd been fine till the kiss. _Had been_ fine till the kiss. Now he just couldn't do that two steps back. Sick of living an illusion.

They should've talked about this a long time ago.

“I don't give a damn about what the squirrels think, but I can't play this game.”

“Because of Dave?” There was no sting in that question. There should've been a sting in it, but all it was was sorrow.

The sun shone through the pines, it felt warm where it touched skin. Birds twitched. A breeze fluttered the branches. Everything to fill the silence. B _ecause of Dave?_ No, maybe, partly. He loved him, buried him and not even a week ago. _Hey, beautiful, come with me, dance with me, kiss me, touch me..._ And oh he would touch him! He loved him and liked it in Vietnam, in the damn war, where he had a place in the team, where he had the chance to prove without judgment, where his soul could fly. And he loved Dave, but lost him too and tried to get his shit together for Ben while him asking if he failed because of Dave. But if it was because of Dave then it was because of Ben too and it wasn't because of Ben. It was all on Klaus.

_Come home with me when it's over! Come with me!_

Why he had to answer this now, why he had to feel guilty about everything? Guilty about an escape, a love. Always guilty about himself. So sick of guilt, so sick of poison.

Ben got off of the car too to face him. “I'm not less real.”

“But you are, aren't you? Ben-- I wouldn’t’ve come home if he hadn’t died.” He felt the pang in that very long second. Like the roof cracked, a thunder struck and it was utter silence with that _pang_ and twitching. Echoing. _Echoing_ in those dark eyes watching him. “You shouldn’t be here with me.”

He saw it just a moment sooner, that crush and crumble in Ben’s eyes, that abyss and fall; he reached for him, tried to grab him but there was only air and Ben looked back at him with those talking eyes and it was hurt and sorrow and a punch to the gut alright. Those feelings, that one, the same he looked at him with back then. _It's you and me. Like back then, we had so much, we were so much. Why would you push me away? Why would you betray me?_

But they weren't damn kids anymore.

“Do you even want this, Klaus?”

“Don't be stupid!”

“I'm not, how could you... Okay, then what now? You send me away? Call him back? Try it with him cause then it will work? Because you want him and just don't want me enough? That's what you want to say?”

“No.”

“Then what, love?!” Ben shouted. _Shouted._ And he just stood there looking into those stoic eyes now deep, dark and raging with emotions. “Then what, love?” he asked again gentler. Like a caress, like an apology, like a proclamation. A confirmation.

He hadn’t felt more lost in his life than standing now there in the middle of the woods before his brother.

“I don't know, Ben. I don't know-- I don't know what's missing...” 

The stress and tiredness pulled one over him, messed with his nerves and he closed his eyes to halt the tears.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Ben moved towards him, tried to hold him, kiss him, and he still felt nothing but air.  _ Nothing more than than the fucking air. _

 


	3. 3

Klaus Hargreeves was strolling through the woods following the ghost of the stranger from safe distance, from just close enough for it to be considered following. He usually didn’t do this not ignoring the dead thing. The opposite to be honest: they weren't there,  weren’t looking, weren’t talking. Period. From a young age he’s been building a wall between him and the ghost due to fears and disgust. The fear that if he would’ve remarked them for real, just once clean and sober he would’ve seen there is no wall. There couldn’t be any wall, they weren’t different enough - and that thought terrified him. So no, he’d never done this ‘remark the ghost’ thing before minus that one time in the motel and back then when Regi forced him. And of course he never ignored Ben. That one always had been different. More than special.

Love made it different, there wasn’t even a category for that.

In Vietnam he could’ve moved on with Dave’s help, with the life he lived there. He killed so many, suffered so much but there had been at least no time to think about walls and lack of walls between him and the dead. There was no Ben to remind him. But here, in the middle of nowhere there was only this two things: Ben and time, a shitload of time with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from the thoughts. He made sure. This time he made sure. He would kill for a pill, for the thoughts and nightmares and visions to stop, for his mind and body to not feel this empty and thin and _matterless_ , but this time he made sure. There was nothing to do but thinking, feeling and processing, so thinking feeling and processing he did. And was now following the ghost of the stranger.

The sun was already past midday at this point, the weather felt considerably warmer than in the morning, the terrain hard-ish under his feet but nothing really felt hard anymore compared to the jungle. He got stronger, more muscular in those months, but weak from stress and withdrawal in the past weak. All balanced out around zero, like his life. The fever was building up again. He slowed down, there was nothing to hurry about.

The funny guy, huh? Always the funny guy. Or the damaged gay kid. Could make a T-shirt with the caption.

“I turn my head for a second and you’re neck deep again.” Ben appeared beside him falling in step.

“What can I say, it’s a talent.” Superpower, like turning anything for the worse, as he did with the conversation with Ben that morning. Regi could’ve had fun with these “gifts” too.

Ben rolled his eyes but the concern on his face was stronger - like his basic facial expression in the past week.

“Why are you here, Klaus?”

In the middle of the woods? Alone, far from the house with some food and a bottle of water in his pocket, the sleeping bag on his back wandering further and further, deeper and deeper? Following something he would sooner shoot himself in the head than follow normally? _Really, Klaus, why are you here?_ But then again, where else was left to be at?

The morning that day had passed calm and slow after their argument and Ben leaving to deal with the shit on his own. The weather was chill, but the sun shined through the window warm and friendly, caressing the skin and the air was still fresh after the storm and heavy with nature. He felt bad for the things he’d said and feeling bad led him to thinking.

It worked in waves: once he felt anxious, trembling in the inside, craving, the fever and nausea coming back with the weakness and the crazy, other times there was only calmness. Not that emptiness he knew, but just calmness. Almost like giving up: not the sobriety, but the fight. Letting go the fear for his own life, letting go the volition to be real and present and that giving up felt calm, clear somehow and sad somehow, but mostly clear, releasing. Like he could breathe deeper and the sun felt warm through the window, like he could just reach through the walls to feel more of it. Like if he would give up enough, give up against death, the walls and the howling, reaching ghost there would be so little left he could do whatever he wanted, go through wherever he wanted, reach through... The thoughts would've scared him, did scare him when he was at his right mind thinking about the siblings and Dave and the life he had, the outlooks he had and that grabbing anxious feeling like woke him, but the calmness was stronger. The wonder was stronger. That hollowness was stronger.

“I’ve tried everything except facing the fears.”

 

* * *

  


The sun’s path turned down and he stopped to drink a few sips of water. The stranger stopped too about a twenty steps before them, turned back to jabber about something nervously pointing toward even more depths in the woods.

“You still don’t understand what he is on about, do you?” he shot a glance at Ben.

“”I haven't learned a new language in the past three hours if that’s what you’re asking.”

He grinned. “One can never know with you, you way too smart, all flying colors, beautiful eminent wonder kid.”

“In primary school, Klaus, primary. All we did was basic math and you were too lazy to do it right.”

He smiled warmly on the memory. They always had sat together in school during lessons, during lunch, did homework on Klaus’ bed, Ben making him continue every time he tried to toss the books off the window. It was kinda Ben’s doing he ended up at university, his memory kept him going for a long time even with the pills. He sometimes considered taking it on at he’s left it. But of course back then he hadn't put too much effort into anything; standing out in something meant way too much work and attention. It felt strange now how he just wanted calm and peaceful back then, slow and steady. Always needed the slow and steady. He couldn’t know how his very life will later revolve around being just noticed at all, to be there, be part of the living. Very often he just hadn’t felt part of anything. Life happened but somehow he always was just elsewhere. The pills helped, chased the thoughts away. If he couldn’t think, he couldn’t think the bullshit either, couldn’t see those fuckers.

Ben was watching the setting sun through the trees lips pressed to a thin line.

“If we turn back now we may reach the house before darkness.”

“Yeah, we may, though we’ll never know going forward as we are.”

“You want to sleep in the woods?” Ben looked at him incredulous.

“Now want is a strong word, I don’t _want_ to spend the night out here, but I won’t turn back now.”

“To prove what exactly?” Ben sounded angry. Wrong. Nervous. He was nervous. And afraid. “That you’re not afraid of this one? Afraid of the dark? Your incredible plan is to die out here to prove you’re not afraid of death?”

It was funny Ben thinking he had a plan at all. _Making it always up as you go and missing the destination with real class till you walk into a chasm. Always with class. Wouldn’t work without the class._ What was his plan, really? He had no fucking answers.

  


* * *

 

 

It took two more hours till they arrived to a scarp deep in the forest. Once it might’ve been a tunnel that collapsed a few ten-hundred years ago. Now it was quit deep; fallen leaves, branches, stones and moss covering the bottom. The ghost pointed at something below them, then appeared again down there as they approached the edge and looked down carefully. Agoraphobia was one of the few things he’s never had but there was a big difference between looking down and climbing in the dusk with his nausea and trembling accompanying him.

_You really just can’t sit still on your butt, can you?_

“You think he died down there?” Ben bent over the edge.

“That or he wants us dead. Must be lonely around here.” _You can tell that again_ – Ben's eyes said. He groaned. Couldn’t be anything just said without hidden meanings and weights and damn it. Damn it, ‘cause everything changed since that punch; like they were marching on broken glass barefoot. “Let's just get this over with!”

“I'm not sure you should...” Ben tried but Klaus was already climbing.

“Stop me if you can!”

He was the kid on the yard who just couldn’t play nice. _If you fall, you deserve every stone you land on._

Of course Ben couldn't stop him, so he did the next best thing and helped him get down safe by telling where the next footholds and stable rocks were. It hasn't been that hard of a wall to climb nor extremely steep, he hadn’t climbed many walls, but he became familiar with huge trees in the past months. It wasn’t that different.

Ben appeared beside him worried the second his foot touched the ground again. That made him irritated. “I had been in the army, you know, and I'd been capable, got a medal even and some shit, stop fretting about me stumbling over my own feet!”

Ben looked at him long, contemplating, sad. He did that often, every time Klaus opened his mouth lately. “They really just let you fight? Appearing out of nowhere in the state you were in and they just gave you a gun?”

Beaten and bloody and half dead - fit there like camouflage.

“Pretty much. Believe me or not, I wasn't the strangest thing there.” And the others helped a lot. Dave mostly, but not just Dave; they got him uniform, gun and papers. Dave gave it to him the night he offered him a new life there with him if he wanted. The memories touched a spot in his soul he my be never be over.

“Without a training?”

“Aw, but wasn't our childhood enough? Dear Regi did more for training our survivor than any officer could.”

Ben agreed. In better countries people who raised their children the way their father did would’ve been imprisoned for a lifetime, this was something none of them ever doubted – except Luther of course. He believed what the old man said as young and privileged, as number one and couldn't not believe it after he gave up his freedom, body and the love of his life for the maniacs of their father. It was madness. It wasn't greater madness than running away at age eighteen without a plan and ending up on the streets.

“Had Dave known how you got there?”

“He had.”

It had the strangest conversation. He not necessarily believed him, that wasn’t even something Klaus expected, but Dave listened, accepted. The shock of the situation and the urge to just to talk about what happened had been too great, the need to trust someone with it. And Dave was… everything really in those few months. He couldn't not tell him and it hadn't fucked up anything. That had been a first too, felt great for a change.

Ben looked at him like _that_ again. _You would’ve just gave up me there. Would’ve gave us up -_ his eyes said.

_You’re dead, Ben. What could’ve I done with the dead?_

The words hanged in the air, but neither of them spoke them out loud. Ben turned away from him with sadness again looking for the stranger and whatever he wanted to show them and Klaus joined him after a deep sight.

 

* * *

  


They indeed found the stranger's body at the bottom covered by rocks and fallen leaves. It was an old one, decayed, only the bones left, some remnants of the clothes, nothing they could've identify him for, the only thing they could tell for moderately sure was that the guy died around the eighteen’s, seventeen's guessed from the belongings lying around. Dude walked into the scarp alright, lost his face on the stones, died there and now was standing beside them jabbering something exasperated in some foreign language. Neither of them understood.

The dead body made Klaus uneasy, but the helplessness of the dead man even more. He tried to tell them, tried to ask but his every effort was in vain. He had the luck to meet a medium who didn’t speak the language. The ghost got angrier, more desperate, stepped toward them and Klaus backed away, Ben stepping between the two protectively. No matter that they’ve found the body, nothing could be done; they’d no name, no address, no way of communication. Whatever the man wanted they wouldn't know. It seemed like it wasn't enough to find the body and if it happened a long time ago the ghost will be stuck here till he gives up or till the end of time going mad slowly, losing touch with the world turning into one of those mad tings. Whichever comes first. The signs were there.

Maybe he was looking for closure and maybe that closure was already gone too: lost, dead, whatever.

He hated these things, these ghosts. This madness was frightening. The ghost tried to come closer again but it halted as he looked up at him. At least this one wasn’t violent, even if technically none of them could hurt him.

Nevertheless, Klaus felt awful; bodies made him always feel awful, it was an empathy thing. Facing death crushed him without exceptions be it somebody who he knew or a stranger or a teammate, even an enemy on the battlefield. Their dad had been the only exception, the only man he kinda wanted dead. Would've killed him for Ben, but Ben died first and he just couldn't care anymore. Even so it touched him hard. Not the loss, not the ashes, but the fact itself that even that asshole monster of a man could die. He almost expected him just reform himself from the ashes somehow. Went home to make sure the man’s really dead and then met the others and all the other shit. This empathy thing... The drugs were perfect against empathy too.

He slumped down to some moss, hid his face into the palm to get his shit together.

“One might think war made you got used to death. How were you able to be there at all?”

“Opiates. We ate them like sugar, everyone, wouldn't have kept sane without it.” He looked along the stones and dried bushes. The stranger was still strolling around his body. “ It’s the funny thing about that place: we’ve all seen the ghosts.”

There was the point Ben’s nerves just gave up. “Yet you stayed almost a year! A year, Klaus, when you could've come back in a minute!”

“Yes, yes I did...”

“You stayed there to kill people and watch other die instead to come home and get your life together!”

The same shit over and over, the same broken record. _Why can’t you just get better? Why can’t you just be normal?_

“There at least had been a life to ge together! I had friends there, a family there! I wasn’t left to keep watch at the door, wasn’t forgotten when we went somewhere, they listened when I talked and they trusted me with their shit in return. They would’ve fuckin’ noticed in a second if I had gone missing, and I would face thousands of dead bodies just to feel that again!”

Ben kept silent watching him fighting his anger and hurt for some seconds before he looked him in the eye. “You know who noticed you were missing? Me. Right away, in an instant and I was looking for you.”

“How long will we keep pretending it’s the same as back then? Everything sunshine and rainbows for fuck’ sake, Ben, you died!”

“Very clever, you noticed that all by yourself. Yes. I died, and I came back for you. Can you imagine what I'd felt when in one minute I'm staying with you, forced to watch they torture you, and the next you're nowhere, gone, can't find you anywhere, feel you anywhere, can't ask anybody what happened to you because they can’t hear me, can’t see me? I was looking for you! I was going crazy! Then you appear from nowhere after a day and it's nine months passed for you, you came back with scars and tattoos, PTSD, a dead lover, as a veteran, with a new life I'm not part of, a life you would’ve chosen instead of me and I…” his voice failed and Klaus felt like the worst man on the face of earth. “You consider the Vietnam war the best part of your life. The Vietnam war! And I was just a plan B.”

“You weren’t even a plan, Ben.” he argued tired and resigned. “You’re a ghost.”

“And? Is that really so bad?”

“Yes, it’s so bad! So freaking bad, Jesus, don’t dare to pretend this works for you, don’t be blind and stupid!” He looked away, anything just not at Ben. Feelings, memories and hopes mixed into a heavy, colorful mush in his head. What Ben didn’t know that that how much really that punch changed. “I didn’t know we could’ve more. I know now and I’m trying.”

“If this is trying then fuck yourself!”

For seconds there was nothing to hear except the insects among the leaves, both of them just fuming in anger glaring at each other while the sun went down slowly and the world turned gray around them. Klaus was the first cool down, his expression softened and the exact moment Ben let out a deep sight too.

“I didn’t mean it. The last one.”

“I know.”

“Only the last one.”

“Yes.”

“My feelings are not less real because I don’t have body anymore, Klaus. I don’t know many things that happened to you but neither do you about things happened to me. You don’t know how scared I was when you disappeared one moment to another or when I died. When I was lying there in my own blood and looked up at you holding me in your arm and I knew I’ll die and you will be left there alone and whatever will happen from there on out will hurt you beyond strength but I can’t be there, can’t help, can’t protect...”

“We were kids, Ben, you can’t... you shouldn’t…” The gentle look in Ben’s eyes made him forget what he was about to say. Fucked up childhood, really bad fucked up childhood. “You helped, it’s just...” he motioned around meaning the circumstances.

Ben nodded, turned away, not like he was about leave or angry or anything, just like he needed a minute, more than a minute, a hard reset just to process everything, these past few days. Both of them needed that. They didn’t even tried to touch anymore.

“What have you felt when I touched you?”

“Surprise.”

“Before that, when it happened.”

Anger, frustration, disappointment, all the feelings he was already familiar with but he didn’t remembered clearly, the surprise of the punch overwhelmed any other feeling he might have had. Ben was probably right though, it could’ve been important, probably was, but he couldn’t remember. He shook his head, Ben couldn’t see it, but knew, somehow these things he always knew.

  


* * *

 

 

They sat camp in a cavern in the wall sheltered by huge rocks, covered by leaves and moss. He lighted a fire from the dry bushes lying around and now he was just sitting there in his sleeping bag, hands on the moss beside him, gazing into the fire, while the world darkened outside the cavern. It was cold, not too much colder than in the shack with the fire burning but it couldn’t be left to die out here if he wanted to wake up in the morning. Ben was sitting next to him silent also in his thoughts.

He wanted to say so much and couldn’t say a thing. There was only the fire crackling, and the nightlife outside with nothing too dangerous living around those woods. The ghost of the stranger was there still appearing from time to time at the mouth of the cavern but being peaceful mostly. The scenery reminded him of the time when he lived under that bridge, when it was a cold night and they gathered around a burning container telling stories and getting high to survive the night. They were quit the gathering, half of them ghosts, most of them recently deceased still calm, not yet crazy from solitude and whatever turned them violent on the long run. They were just laughing there among themselves and they seemed like some of them didn’t even know what happened to them. That had been the only time he actually talked to a ghost not realizing what they were and they talked to him like he had been one of them. Later the memory terrified him, now he wondered what exactly had been so frightening about it.

The idea that he actually, deep down isn’t alive and never was. Yeah, that must be it. His friendly neighborhood dooming thought.

This notion had been always fidgeting at the back of his mind since the first hours in the crypt: he is dead, he is like those crazy things in the crypt: mad and howling and fucking disgusting and terrifying. He isn’t noticed, is forgotten, is ignored and misplaced and lost, and everything because he already turned into a ghost and the world is just waiting to blow him away, turn him even madder and crazier. He was afraid of death, the dead, afraid of this life where every day was fighting against his own thoughts, for staying sane, not letting the fears sweep him away. He escaped to the pills from the thoughts.

He was just a young man, a mostly cheerful, borderline crazy, more than averagely messed up one. He was not dead, he was not a ghost. The thoughts chased him to madness through his entire life. Now in the dark and silence he wondered if it really would be that bad.

There was nobody around, no sound just the fire, no brightness just that fire but that fire will die down and there will be nothing left just darkness and he will sit there with two ghosts, both mostly peaceful and sane. Just like under the bridge. Calm and peaceful like he wanted it back when he had been still a child.

Sobriety made everything worse and now there were nowhere to run from the thoughts, from the crypt and memories and death. In the dark in the silence he could be already dead and none would be the wiser, it wouldn’t even matter. This was the first time the thought didn’t terrified him.

_You shouldn’t be afraid of darkness._ Because you’re part of it. And if there were wrong ways to show this to a child, If there were wrong ways to make him realize and accept who he was Regi had found them all. But maybe, just maybe he had done it because he knew, like hi knew the apocalypse and he closed him in there to kill the fear.

_Are you still afraid? Are you still afraid?_ But Klaus had been too strong and too stubborn to give up on who he was, give up on his life. Even if Regi had known somehow the thoughts torturing him, even if he meant well in the end it didn’t make him less of a monster, just a monster who had been right. Because maybe, just maybe Klaus wasn’t a man, a medium who could see ghosts but an already dead one, a ghost in a human body stuck at the border between the dead and the living being able to communicate both ways, touch both ways and who could know what else?

Ben was a monster and he was a ghost. And a thought that terrified him in all his life before made too much fucking sense there in the dark, in silence, being sober, sick and hungry, at the verge of his strength.

Because there was hardly any difference between a human with a soul and a ghost with a body - only the mindset. The giving up. Giving in. Something warm touched to his hand and he jumped in surprise.

“Klaus!” Ben was looking at him with wide shot eyes his eyes so dark and deep and fucking beaming. “Klaus…”

“Did you…?”

“Yes, yes, you…” Ben reached for him again, offered his hand, palm upwards. Smiling so fucking hopeful.

It was giving up.

On life.

On who he was.

_It doesn’t make me less real. It wouldn’t make you less real._

He reached for Ben too.

“Don’t panic now, love. It will work, just take a deep breath!”

It was just giving up. It hadn’t been the first time, it happened before, that day, exactly before Ben pounced him to the face. That’s what he felt: acceptance, and now their hands touched; Ben warm and soft around his hand, smiling and laughing and talking to him so overflown with joy, grabbing his hand, kissing into his palm.

_What now, love, what now?_

It’s just giving up.

_I’m a ghost._

Ben kissed him and he pulled him into the tightest embrace.


	4. 4

Klaus Hargreeves was keeping up the flame, now he had to keep two people alive in the cold night. The dry bushes burned down fast and the fire started to dim again, turning the orange reflecting from the stones to red-ish. His fever acted up again, like every night and he wasn’t sure anymore if it was the withdrawal, some kind of sickness chewing him from the inside or he was getting mental. The stone was cold and hard against and under him, but Ben was warm sitting in his lap, leaning against him.

His brother was sleeping, but he was awake and awake meant thinking. Thinking through the fog of the fever, things like why his brother was sleeping at all if he was a ghost. If both of them…

Shh… easy. Easy.

He was too tired to think about it, too numb. He was a ghost in a body who could manipulate the barrier between the living and the dead. Pulled Ben to this side. For now, for ever? Or what? A million possibilities, but his mind was static. Like in that room, with a black ‘n white TV and the cuffs and the other things. He wasn’t too sure, but that static stuck with him no matter how high he had been.

_Ssssss. Sssssss._

He nuzzled his nose in Ben’s hair, felt the soft locks, the skin, the warmth. The hard flesh and bone under his fingers. Dream and surreal. _How many times did you dreamt about it?_ But it was a nightmare, not because of the dream but because the hours and days of self-destruction following one and any of them.

 _Whenever I woke you’re already awake_. Klaus always has been a lazy kid.

And now maybe it was reality. Maybe. Maybe a trap, there wasn’t a single time they got something nice from Lady Life.

 _Who else could you call back, who else_ _could you use?_ Of course Regi wanted this power: moving things through the realm. This thing would’ve been useful no matter what it made him, what inhuman, crazy, disgusting thing he became and all that running and pill chasing was in vain, because he ended up exactly where he didn’t want to, where he was different, slippery, dead, disgusting and…

A hand fastened around his wrist.

_A monster like Ben._

“Shh, love…” Ben whispered to his chest feeling his distress, waking up.

It wasn’t fair to him. And he hasn’t been this afraid ever before. Being a ghost _and_ holding Ben. Almost more afraid for holding Ben. Like it was some forbidden fruit of the past.

“Your tense like a spring.”

 _One more tick and you explode. Living your life at the verge, a crave for a simple life turned into drama._ Melodrama. A warm hand pushed against his chest, lips against his chin. And he closed his eyes, pulled the man closer, kissed his temple.

“You’re hot.”

“Thank you.” he smiled faintly and Ben didn’t even made an effort to protest he hadn’t meant that. He just sat up, looked him in the eye concerned all the same, like he saw something on him and that something made him pale, thin and broken. Klaus coughed and his chest burned along with a stabbing pain. This was a freakish bad sign, so was the pain in his arms and legs.

That damn cold, his junkyard of an immunsystem. His chest burned like he breathed fire.

The red of the fire turned to brown, the world to black and Ben wasn’t glowing anymore. Most of the time. It didn’t worked perfectly and when panic got the better of him he lost his lover, reached through his chest, his arms. He felt like killing something. The panic was too great, the damage was too great, this whole situation and mindset was so great it felt like it will crash him like he was a bug. He couldn’t breathe and think then Ben talked to him, held him. And the mantras about who he was turned into static, just like the flames turned to smoke.

Sssssss. Ssssssss.

But now it was working and Ben pushed his palm against his chest, just above the heart, watched the place where they touched and he smiled so gentle and loving and so fucking sad, those dark eyes even darker in the ever dimming light. He shouldn’t have been sad and Klaus shouldn’t have felt so lost and week and like a small kid who faces the world for the first time. Still he looked up at Ben like back then, so lost and so week and so confused and so like an innocent little flower as back then the first time Ben sat on his lap, held his face into his two palms.

_We can have this. I want this too, I don’t care what they think, I don’t care what they say._

The first kiss of a kid. The change in their relationship just months before… He never talked about it. Couldn’t. In all his life he was trying to hide that innocence. And here it was again. A different kind of deja vu.

He moved to put some wood on the fire but Ben pushed him back down. They both shivered in the cold.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Fire.”

“You stay there, I’ll make it.”

He didn’t have the strength to protest just leaned back to the stone watched Ben getting up reaching for the bushes unsure and smiled upon the faint uncertainty on his face turning into delight as he really could grab and move the things around. He smiled so sweet, tossed the logs to the fire, the ember sparked up, Ben looked around, touched the stone, touched the walls, the bag and beamed.

Klaus smile failed. “Am I keeping you here? Can you go back and forth?”

His brother hesitated, put his hand on the wall of the cave, concentrated then pushed his hand through the stone elbow deep then pulled back and pushed the palm to the stone again solidly. They looked at each other but Klaus had nothing to say, just stared at the Ben’s hand on the stone his mind, no, soul heavy and muddy, whatever was happening whatever he was doing was pulling him down and the thoughts, changes and conclusion turned into static in his system.

“I can do it, because you want me to do it.”

“This is madness.” A coughing fit got him again bending him in half. Soft fingers combed through his hair, turned his cheeks up, deep eyes gazed into his concerned and soft ones, happy that he don’t have to just watch anymore from afar, from the other side, that he can be here, can touch, can help, can love, can express and in the same time there was nothing he really could do again. Just like before.

Where was the way out from the woods? Where was help if he was sick? And he was sick alright, this burning wasn’t the withdrawal.

“You make it look easy.”

“Acceptance?”

Klaus just hummed affirmatively and Ben watched him, searching his eyes for minutes. _You really don’t want this?_ _You really can’t do this? Is your love for me really gone?_ They weren’t fucking kids anymore.

“I haven’t had to bury you and go on with my life. Never in my life had I have to fight alone. Never have I ever got so low running from myself as you had. I spent a few painful years here, but I have never had it so bad I would’ve escaped to a warzone. I just wish...” Ben was fighting his tears, he saw in in his eyes, heard it in his voice, the way it shook, the way he casted his eyes down. “I just wish I could have you alone in a clean room in a bed between the sheets and I could show you how real I am, how real it is, how loved you are, Klaus. How I wish to hold you, kiss you, love you, how I wish you would touch me to make sure, would hold me so close and so solid and so real to chase these thoughts away about dreams and nightmares and fevers and fears. How I wish to show you I’m really here and I will be here if you want me because I love you.”

The cave got warmer again, the flames strengthened and Klaus’ tears refracted the light like crystals.

“After everything I did to this body, to myself, to you… Ben, I’m broken. I’m not that man. You can’t repair this. I can’t repair this. I’m dirty, fouled…” Ben’s arm closed around him, pulled him close and solid and unfaltering. He peppered his hair with kisses, his neck and he cried hugging his knees, hiding his face.

“I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. You’re mine. Sweet, gentle, funny, caring. You’re who I want. Am I who you want?” Klaus just pushed back against him more as an answer. “Then we will learn this again, just don’t push me away, I beg you please, don’t push me away!”

His answer turned into another fit and Ben just hold him harder. Despairingly.

_Love…_

And static.

  


* * *

  


Mornings were disgusting, because they meant a new day to face life and himself in the mirror. Mornings were awesome because they meant the night has passed. If he was lucky he was still high enough not to care either way. Rarely was he sober but sometimes sober enough to watch the sunrise. That meant thinking about the day, all the days, all the life.

One morning he lied under the bridge with the others, on the concrete, cold and surprisingly clear watching the sun above the city. There was no Ben back then, no real reason to behave and he just lied there running through the same thought again and again, like a broken phonograph.

_Death can’t be more empty. Can’t be more empty than this moment._

That day he overdosed for the first time just to make sure. Bought a house at the middle of nowhere when they brought him back. Now he was lying on the cold ground in a cave, freezing with a burning lung, head on Ben’s leg.

“You sure this is real?”

“Yes.”

That was reassuring; at least one of them was, way better than none. He run his fingers on Ben’s leg, hummed as a hand played with his hair. The world turned slowly from gray to colorful.

“We should go back.” the words he dreaded left Ben’s mouth.

If he can go back. He caught and had to realize again just how far anything else was, any help, his phone gone, his car gone. Going home hadn’t really been a plan before only through some miracle, but he was too weak for miracles now and there was nobody to call.

_Move! Move, if we sit we will die here!_

He didn’t know what to say to this, how he should tell this to Ben, if he should tell, if he could tell. He felt like a kid again sitting on the bed in the their room, Klaus hands in his. _Can I tell you something? Can I tell you something, love?_

With the naivety of a kid, honesty of a kid, fright of a kid. _I have nothing to go back to, not even my own mind._

But he'd promised it. Not really promised, more like determined he would move, move for Ben, because after _that_ morning under the bridge he knew if he sits too long he will sit forever. With glassy eyes, rotting body. He could sometimes see that.

There was nowhere to go, but he would fight for the last breath even if it’s only life itself to fight. So he did move eventually, got up, wandered out of the cave with Ben in his heels, silent, looked back the stranger still wandering around his body. Ben put his hand on his shoulder.

“We can come back when you’re better.”

He nodded, there was nothing he could do except he wanted to try something. The stranger looked up at them puzzled then down to his hands back at them, he talked bewildered, motioned them to wait then crouched down to the bones, searched through them, pulled out a weapon under the rocks, already buried, stood, turned to them weapon held low next to his thigh. He didn’t want harm, looked up at them alarmed but grateful.

“That’s what you wanted?” Of course the ghost couldn’t understand him. “You can go, bring that thing too.” The ghost disappeared pulling the weapon with him from this realm and they were left alone. He tried not to freak out and failed miserably, the weight of the situation forced him to sit. Nothing could show more the seriousness of what happened than Ben keeping silent.

“We will figure this out.” his brother said eventually. “Your powers, the limits, everything. Together.”

At this point there was nothing he could do on his own anyway. Everything in him screamed to go back, go back, forget all this and he would’ve if not for Ben. He felt lost, in darkness, with monsters, all this realization thing being too much to understand, to accept, to comprehend. The stress turned into static and nausea. There was nothing to say. He caught again, but stood, headed to the place they’ve climbed down at. If he could turn back time, if he could not wake up, not born, not having this life...

 _Klaus? Klaus?_ It was the most alarming when he behaved cold and normal.

Ben could just appear at the top again, he had to climb, but now the fever hadn’t passed with the rising sun, the burning didn’t lessened and it felt like his head was filled with water; heavy and empty. Broken autopilot. Just broken. The stones were cold and sharp under his fingers, the moss smelled like dirt, the leaves like mud. He almost passed out reaching the top, collapsed to the pine needles and rocks, the weak sun shone through the pines.

_Klaus? Klaus? Darling, it’s alright._

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine; fought the giving up like he fought the fever, even more.

 _I just wish to have you in a clean bed naked._ He wished that too; sleep and comfort and security. Certainty. An embrace. Hearing again and again that it’s alright, it’s alright to be like this, it’s alright to be alive like this, that he is still somebody, it’s alright to get what you wanted, it’s alright to stay alive and be happy after all you’ve done.

_It’s alright, Ben. It’s alright, Klaus. After so many years and so many things._

_I fucking want this to be over!_

Ben stood above offering his hand to help him stand, he accepted it, squeezed it, because he could and Ben smiled that little smile that was sad and loving in the same time squeezing it back.

 

 

  


* * *

  


They took a break at a clearing a hour later, Klaus couldn’t go any further and Ben wasn’t used to taking walks either. They sat on a sunny spot, weather considerably warmer now. Birds were twitching, the woods was alive around them but keeping the distance carefully. He conjured the water bottle and some food out of his coat though he felt no hunger anymore - another bad sign. Ben was observing the woods, but his stomach growled.

Klaus laughed, tossed him  a stale pastry. “Welcome at the empire of basic needs!”

“I won’t eat your food, you need it more, I can go back any time.”

 _I can leave any time. I can turn this back any time._ Ben didn’t have to be there, though Klaus knew his brother craved to be alive just as much as any other. There was no turning back for him on the other hand, just the pills; now the thought made him even more sick.

“Eat it. There is no more than a days worth of food left anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

Ben glared at him again silently, with a gaze so intense it could melt steel. “And you don’t care?”

“I would care if there would be anything I can do about it.”

He’s never seen anyone eating pastry as passive aggressively as Ben did, turning his back even. A smiled escaped him, even a chuckle that made Ben turn. Thought his head hurt so much he had to lie back to the moss and needles. Ben joined him in mere minutes lying close beside him, leaning his head and Klaus shoulder, hand on his chest. The sun shone down to them through the branches, birds twitched, insects chirred.

Time wasn't important anymore.

“Do you have any plan how to get home?” Ben asked quietly after a while.

“No.”

Ben’s hand tightened in Klaus’ clothes, pulled him closer but he didn’t say anything. They rested there calm and silent just like before, just like when they had been kids in Klaus bed, at night when the house was already asleep. They slept, talked nonsense or just lied there in silence. Just like now, like silence wasn’t an enemy. Maybe back then it wasn’t.

“Ben…” he asked “did I – force you? To be here. Are you here because I wanted you here?”

His brother raised his head from his chest, looked deep into his eyes contemplating, searching.

“Had you wanted me here, Klaus?”

There was an answer to that question but the words got stuck in his throat and Ben sighted. “I’m here because I wanted to, you have nothing to do with that and even if you would’ve wanted you had been too high and distracted be able… But you hadn’t. You could see ghost back then but never looked for me.”

Klaus winced from the weight of the words, the realization and dumbfounded hurt in Ben’s voice, in his dark eyes, in his touch drawing back.

 _You hadn’t._ He hadn’t. _You’ve failed even in that, failing even in this._ Maybe it was just him, this new light about himself didn’t change the mess he had been, who he was. That kid that lied in that bed in that hell of a house, joke of a home after his first love’s, brother’s, friend’s funeral never grew up, just got older, became an addict, realized he is dead. And he never wished to see Ben again.

_A ghost in a body._

And he cried so hard, so long that night, his first night alone in bed, his first night without Ben. No physical pain could be greater than that night, no crypt or ghost could be more frightening that that darkness and that solitude. _Love, darling._ And there was so much blood on the floor, so much cries. _Please please please please please…_

Regi hadn’t really cared and nobody had checked on him that night only Diego the next morning. _Hey, man… you alright?_ They took a ride later but never talked. Two weeks later Luther ordered him to get his shit together. In that moment he knew he will run away and he knew what it will mean to be left alone with his powers. Klaus wasn’t stupid. He did it anyway. Because he never wished to see Ben again.

“I couldn’t drag you back from the afterlife. And I couldn’t…”

“Face me like this?”

 _Face you like this. Face you like those things from the crypt._ He cried and it hurt but he had never called him back, couldn’t do that to Ben, couldn’t do that to himself and as the years passed he was so ashamed of himself he couldn’t have borne Ben to see it. Then his brother showed up.

 _I’ve missed you._ But Klaus could say nothing.

“Did _I_ force you, Klaus?” Ben asked looking shocked and weak and small, sitting up “I’ve never asked if you, I just assumed after what we had you would – never stop loving me, but you were right, I died, I wasn’t your plan, I got jealous for Dave, but chased you to Vietnam and I… Gods, Klaus, I’m so so–”

A grab and squeeze of his hand halted the guilt trip.

“No.” Determined. In this. For this.

_Why are you always lying?_

He sat up, pulled Ben back, pushed their foreheads together, nose touched, breaths too and his brother closed his eyes, held his hand like he would disappear if he lets go. Klaus was burning, muscles aching, head heavy like stone, numb from the fever, numb from the words.

“What we had… I want to care about what will come.”

Start over the whole life, the whole mindset. They wouldn't be there without Ben, without at least one of them fighting for what they both wanted deep down. For something impossible. If he will be happy, it will happen because Ben forced him. He smiled and that made Ben smile too, a weak, unsure little thing, but he kissed back eager and relieved and hungry as Klaus kissed him, pulled him back to the needles, over him lying on his chest.

Their bodies touched; chest, hips, lips, they kissed, Klaus’ hands in Ben’s hair, Ben’s wandering over his body, mapping, feeling, grabbing.

“I wish… I want you so much.” Ben breathed. Klaus shivered. It was the words and the fever. They kissed again, but he coughed, pushed Ben away, turned to his side when it didn’t seem to pass and he couldn’t breath.

Ben patted his back gently.

“It’s just a cold.” He muttered as he could speak again.

“Not anymore.”

“Some meds will help.”

“Meds we don’t have.”

“Ben…”

“I can’t lose you.”

That drowned every protest he could’ve had, looked in his brothers eyes, caressed his cheeks, Ben got hold of his hand.

“Please, come to the ghost side!”

  


* * *

  


The sun had already disappeared behind the pines when the house came into view. He was tired beyond measure, sick beyond words, too weak even to sit so he just stood there where he halted watching the dark form of the house under the trees. Ben stood beside him as a ghost this time, he got tired even sooner not having had to walk since he died. And there was no tiredness at that side, no hunger, no sickness, no anything. Plain and sterile and hollow. This hollowness draw souls mad, but now he couldn’t wish anything more than he wished to not feel this weak.

Still he’s said no to Ben. There was where he’s drawn the line, that was the last thing he couldn’t give, the last straw, the last rope binding him to the here and now, to life, normality, reality. _When had you been normal?_

_What will be left? What will be left of me, Ben? If I leave this life, if I leave myself? Who will I be? Who will I be if I can’t come back?_

He had fought it so many years, it has broken him so many times. _I’m one of them._ And still. _And still._

He watched the house with the near collapsed roof, the dark windows, the trees growing in the roof, the mushroom on the walls. He watched the broken car that won’t work anymore, the closed truck with hardly any food left. There was nowhere to go. He had no place here and no place at the city where he grew up. That was just as bad, just as shitty. _And there was no place to be. No place to hide._

He could sit down and die.

He wouldn’t just sit down and die. Not anymore. Not since Ben was there. Especially not now that Ben was really there.

“Klaus?” A warm hand touched his shoulder.

_I can’t lose you._

And he was just standing there watching the dark house. There was no future there. He saw himself in there and that image screamed failure. An inherent failure. _How do you wipe out the past?_

“If you could live any life what would you do?” he asked.

“Make this right between us. I don’t care if we travel, go home, move to the country, steal a penthouse. I don’t care, but I would go with you. And if you stay…” Ben looked at the dark house too. “I’ll stay too.”

Klaus smiled through the fever and emotions. “Pretty melodramatic, huh?”

“If you go, you go all the way.”

“Isn't that right?” _Toss it all away, everything._ What was in his life worth keeping? What was there to be left? Who was there to be left? Who was there to be?

_You destroy it, to the last stand, everything, every wall and every nail. And when even the remnants are gone than you can build a house._

He wasn’t sure his father would’ve cared, he wasn’t sure there was anybody on the face of earth who would’ve cared except Ben. That dark shithole of a house couldn’t keep being a shelter anymore.

_You go all the way. Step by step, slowly and hesitantly, but you go all the way._

“I’m afraid.”

“I know.”

He had fought this all his life. He had fought it more than enough for a lifetime.

“If you could live any life what would you do?”

 _I would live a life I don’t have to run from anymore._ But out loud he didn’t say it, looked Ben in the eye, smiled faintly.

“So we just walk home?”

“It’s different at the other side.” Ben got hold of his hand, squeezed it. _It’ll be alright. It will be alright._

He took a deep breath. The last breath. And the first breath at the same time. He could leave everything: every baggage, every dirt, every wound. A last breath and the first breath. If he was brave enough he wouldn’t have to run ever again. If he was, if he could be. He had been brave enough to face Vietnam, he was brave enough to face the withdrawal and he was brave enough to face himself. Maybe. Probably. _At the edge of the abyss._ He just wished he could fly. He closed his eyes, he let it go; felt Ben disappear, then the cold with a pang, the air, the fever, the fragrance of the woods, the earth under his feet, the beating of his hearth and only after that, the fears. There was nothing left in the woods at the place they’ve been standing just a second ago.

Then he opened his eyes.

  


 

 

 

 

* * *

* * *

  


 

 

Ben stole him meds and now he felt better just a few days after they’ve left the woods. They were staying in a motel - without the owner knowing anything about it. His brother was sleeping inside, he was sitting out on the balcony floor phone in hand watching a picture he took of Ben.

He hit send and just mere minutes later his phone rang.

“Is he who I think he is?”

“It’s Ben.”

There was a long silence at the other end before Diego asked. “How?”

“It’s complicated. Let’s just say we found out some things. I will tell you.”

“You coming home?”

“Only to visit for now, but yes.”

Silence again, he could almost hear the million questions and remarks Diego wanted to say but swallowed. For minutes there was only the hard breaths of his brother. Uncharacteristically calm and composed. He didn’t expected himself to be this happy to hear his voice.

“After what happened with Vanya I thought things will change. The you left.”

“Things did change, we just need more time.”

“Should I get you from the station?”

It wasn’t necessary, they traveled through the ghost realm really efficiently, but it was a gesture that warmed his heart and made him smile.

“That would be nice.”

“Call me!”

He would and was glad he did call in the end after hours of chickening out in the last second. Some things just never changed and others… Other things changed so much they weren’t even recognizable anymore. The world stayed the same but the perspective differed, who he was, how he saw himself. The back and forth between the realms washed away many things with an alarming suddenty: shames, insecurities, concerns about his body and life. All good? Maybe not. Probably not. Most of that Klaus Hargreeves who had grown up in that ragtag family and spent those days in the woods disappeared with his body and the man who was left behind had a white blank page to fill the gaps.

He wondered if it was the same how Ben had felt. He wondered what kind of life they will lead. He wondered if Regi had known. He wondered if he is the same man.

He walked back to the room through the closed balcony door, Ben already awake watching his every step from the bed. He smiled happy and content that made Klaus smile too climbing back to the bed, lying down next to Ben pulling the body closer, kissing his shoulder.

“Who did you talked to?”

“Diego.”

Ben beamed. He was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He knew they were going home, he probably knew they will stay. Klaus wasn’t sure and for now he didn’t really cared holding Ben in his arms in a clean bed happy and satisfied.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is the end of this one. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.


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